This article was first published on The Times of Israel and was re-posted with permission.

Israel has been ranked number five overall on this year’s Bloomberg Innovation Index, an annual ranking of countries that measures performance in research and development, tech education, patents, and other marks of technology prowess. Fifth place marked a dramatic rise from last year’s 30th.

Israel did especially well in the R&D category, with the country ranking second in GDP expenditure on research, as well as on the percentage of the labor force with advanced degrees and the number of research professionals per million population. Israel ranked fourth overall in both those categories.

The study measured country rankings in six areas: R&D, manufacturing, the number of high-tech companies located in each country (the total number, not adjusted for population size), the number of students enrolled in post-secondary education programs, the number of PhDs working in R&D, and the number of patents per capita.

With its fifth place overall ranking, Israel bested France, Singapore, and the UK, as well as the US, which came in sixth overall. Taking the number one spot in overall innovation, as well as in R&D and education, was South Korea, followed by Japan, Germany, and Finland. China, recently touted by some as posing an R&D challenge to Israel, came in 18th in that category, and 23rd overall. India, another supposed challenger, did not make the top fifty in any of the metrics.

Israel’s overall rank was a strong improvement over last year’s Bloomberg ranking, which lists the top 50 countries for innovation. In that ranking, Israel placed a dismal 30th. In those rankings, Israel did well in education and R&D, but not as well in patents – ranking only 28th.